The Religious Right’s Violent Bully Pulpit

Earlier this week, Boyd K. Packer, president of the Mormon Church’s Quorum of Twelve Apostles, gave a sermon that endorsed discrimination against gay people and claimed that they could be converted into heterosexuals.

Conveniently, Packer failed to point out that the keynote speaker at the Mormon “ex-gay” group Evergreen’s September conference was John Paulk – the supposedly cured family man that I photographed in a Washington, DC gay bar in 2000. (video below)

Truth Wins Out recently revealed that Mormon “life coach”, Alan Downing, was instructing clients to touch their genitals in front of a mirror to help make them straight. (video below) And “People Can Change”, a bizarre boot camp run by Rich Wyler, a Mormon “ex-gay” activist, has a “cuddle room” where men touch each other to find sexual “healing”.

No matter how many millions of dollars religious organizations squander on this fatal fantasy, or how loudly they preach this destructive lie – there is no evidence that one can pray away the gay. The idea that millions of gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people will abandon rich, satisfying lives to become “ex-gay” is equal parts propaganda and pipedream.

Given the fact that LGBT people exist and are not going anywhere, the Religious Right has two choices:

1) It can accept that LGBT people are on a trajectory to be embraced by mainstream society

2) Or, it can suppress this rapidly growing trend through intimidation and violence

In the past year, I believe, the LGBT movement has reached a tipping point, where there is finally light at the end of the tunnel. Polls are in favor of equal rights and widespread acceptance is seeping into nearly every sphere of society.

Anti-gay activists see the writing on the wall and are reacting rabidly by spewing unprecedented amounts of biblical bile. The attitude of these extremists can be summed up by The Call’s Lou Engle, who said at an anti-gay seminar in Lynchburg, Va., earlier this year, that without a Godly intercession, the LGBT movement would win.

Of course, there will be no Godly intercession, anymore than there will ever be a mass exodus into the silly “ex-gay” ministries. And, this is precisely why organizations like Focus on the Family, The Minnesota Family Council, and Exodus International fight tooth and nail against programs that would stop anti-gay bullying.

The horrible truth is that the Religious Right needs the threat of violence and selective use of terror to keep young people from living openly and honestly. They even have entire websites, such as TrueTolerance.org, and annual events, like the “Day of Truth”, to ensure bullying remains a bloody right of passage for many gay students.

Our foes would deny that violence is their intention, and no doubt many of them would prefer a neat and clean conversion, before a messy reversion to brute force. But, Dr. Joseph Berger revealed how the right genuinely believes gender norms should be enforced.

“…let the other children ridicule the (gay or transgender) child who has lost that clear boundary between play-acting at home and the reality needs of the outside world,” wrote Berger, a “Scientific” Advisory Committee member of the “ex-gay” therapy group NARTH. “Maybe, in this way, the child will re-establish that necessary boundary.”

How do such “academic” ideas play out in the real world?

Ask 11-year old Tyler Wilson, a victim of such boundary enforcement. Last month bullies broke his arm because he joined his school’s cheering team. Also last month, at least six gay youth committed suicide, by way of bridge jumping, hanging, and gunshot wound. (Finally – through suicide — the Religious Right can claim success for helping gay youth “leave homosexuality”.)

The closet is also enforced for adults by roaming thugs who use violence to let LGBT people know their place. In the heavily gay neighborhood of Chelsea, a group of friends were attacked this weekend with fists and a metal garbage can, while the assailants yelled, “Go home faggots. This is our neighborhood.”

Actually, this is my neighborhood, with my apartment only one block away from where this gay bashing incident occurred.

I have also had drinks at the historic Stonewall Inn – birthplace of the modern LGBT movement and the scene of an equally horrific anti-gay hate crime this past weekend.

On a street corner where I have held hands with my partner, I now must look over my shoulder. In a bar where I once imbibed carefree, I must now be on guard. Even if the perpetrators are caught and jailed, the damage to all LGBT people is done.

Breeding such insecurity, at root, is why the Religious Right vehemently opposes efforts in schools to stop bullying. As long as no place feels completely safe, the church-inspired closet will maintain the illusion of a safe haven.

The unholy marriage of the bully and the pulpit really is all anti-gay activists have left in their arsenal to defeat the LGBT movement. No matter how many youth commit suicide or adults are gay-bashed, don’t expect our foes to give up their trump card of violence anytime soon.

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About the Author

Wayne Besen is the Founding Executive Director of Truth Wins Out and author of “Anything But Straight: Unmasking the Scandals and Lies Behind the Ex-Gay Myth” (Haworth, 2003). In 2010, Besen was awarded the “Visionary Award” at the Out Music Awards for organizing the American Prayer Hour, an event which shined a spotlight on the role American evangelicals played in the introduction of Uganda’s Anti-Homosexuality Bill.

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12 Comments

They may have a trump card of violence, but I carry a .38. Any one of those violent fascist dominionist christian bigots raises a fist at me, they will get a cap in them.

PeterOctober 6, 2010 at 9:03 pm -

I think is interesting how you had a LONG conversation with him, but you only got a picture of his back. Sketchy…

PhilipJOctober 6, 2010 at 9:10 pm -

Peter, if you were the poster-child/king of the “ex-gays”, and were recognized by two different people in a gay bar, wouldn’t you do everything in your power to keep from being photographed? (Read the full story in Wayne’s book “Anything But Straight”.)

What is MORE important is that Paulk finally had to fess up (after lying to Focus on the Family AND Exodus) that he was indeed in a gay bar, that that was him in the photograph that Wayne took. (His initial explanations for being there were hilarious, IMHO.)

Wayne BesenOctober 7, 2010 at 12:12 am -

Peter:

Are you kidding me?

This incident is a known fact. Paulk admitted it, as did Exodus and Focus on the Family.

As for picture, as you can imagine, most people do not pose for their scandal photo.

What is sketchy is that you commented without doing your homework.

Karl StreipsOctober 7, 2010 at 4:21 am -

The utterly astonishing thing to me about the religious Reich is its complete and total misreading of what the Bible is about. The central message in the Bible is this: Love one another. Or, to put it in 21st century terms: Be nice to each other, for goodness’ sake. Now, those members of the religious Reich who have more than seven brain cells will smirk at that and then smarmily say that of COURSE they love the L, G, B or T person, it’s just that the L, G, B or T person is such a naughty, naughty person, and wouldn’t it just be wonderful if that were not the case? But thanks to Wayne for tracking those maniacs who do have fewer than seven brain cells. There is absolutely no such thing as an ex-gay. If there were, then there would also be ex-straights. Perhaps we could start up an organization to help unhappy straight people to return from their sad lives and to become happily gay instead. Of course, no amount of intervention could ever help someone like Mel Gibson, for instance. But one has to start somewhere.

WilliamOctober 7, 2010 at 7:02 am -

Peter: Nowhere in the above video (or anywhere else, to my knowledge) does Wayne claim to have had a LONG conversation with John Paulk IN THE GAY BAR. The conversation in which Paulk gave his unconvincing explanations for being in the bar took place later, over the telephone.

What appears to be yet another attempted explanation, which Paulk gave some years later at an “ex-gay” gathering, although he didn’t specifically refer to the bar incident, was that when he travels around too much, the “demon of homosexuality comes and sits on my shoulder.”

To All—If you haven’t read Wayne Besen’s book, Anything but Straight, I strongly urge you to do so. I’ve read it three times and each time am again astounded at the lengths to which religious/ex-gay bigots go to further their cause, all of which he exposed beautifully.

I consider the book a monumental achievement in our movement for equal rights. It, plus the many articles in truthwinsout, along with counter-demonstrations he organizes around the country, have the bigots on the run.

As more and more high-profile gays come out of the closet and high-profile straights jump on the bandwagon with us, we are progressing like I never could have dreamed. However, I fear it will get worse before it gets better, much like the Civil Rights Movement many years ago. It will be a tough battle, but we are on our way like we have never been.

Jerry Johnson

BeckyOctober 7, 2010 at 12:00 pm -

Wayne, I’m sure Peter doesn’t really care about facts. I mean, anyone can work the google nowadays but if they actually found out about the incident they wouldn’t be able to hold on to their misguided beliefs.

DerekOctober 11, 2010 at 10:04 am -

Wayne, the only comment that I think is incorrect is that Boyd K Packer isn’t the president of the Mormon Church. He’s next in line to be president. He is the current president of the quorum of 12 apostles.

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